OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK!! RODNEY KING BEATERS *INNOCENT*!!
Tony Alicea
AP Online
AP 04/29 18:17 EDT V0912
1992. The Associated Press.
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- Four white Los Angeles police officers
were acquitted Wednesday of the most serious assault charge in the
videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, a case that shocked
the nation and toppled the city's police chief.
The verdicts about other charges were still being read.
.................
Another all white jury from a rich neighborhood acquitting white "nice"
policemen for beating a black *non person*!! Ha! What a joke!. I'm
disgusted.
Shawn Kenny
>
>AP Online
>.................
Actually the tape was tampered with and the police never used excessive
force to arrest him! Actors were dubbed in to create that myth.
Seriously though to add more to the tragedy is that at least 5 people
were killed in the ensuing riots.
--
=================================
ske...@pico.engr.mun.ca
St. John's, NF, CANADA
"Have a touton or do without'n !"
Denis Hancock
>Seriously though to add more to the tragedy is that at least 5 people
>were killed in the ensuing riots.
The death toll is up to 9 as of 10:30 CST. According to NPR, a news crew
operating out of a helicopter has tape of a motorist being dragged from
his car and beaten by several persons. NPR described the riots as being
the worst since the Watts riots of the mid-sixties.
News analysts suggested that the defense strategy of showing the police
as the front line in a war for control of the streets paid off. This, of
course, implies that "anything goes". Unfortunately, the violent aftermath
of the verdicts, which include arson, looting, beatings, and murder play
right into that attitude.
The Justice Department is exploring civil rights charges, so there may be
some redress still available.
Paul Roberts
LA is looking a lot like the Occupied Territories, or maybe South
Africa back in the good ol' days ....
Paul
("good" = sarcasm)
Craig Smith
>
>AP Online
>.................
So why not go out and riot, loot, burn, and murder your own neighbors
like they did in LA when they heard?
Mark J. Rinehart
This verdict, as well as several not guilty verdicts in police
brutality cases handed down in NJ in the last 2 years, give one clear
message. The police *are* above the law. We can certainly see that in
NJ, which is known far and wide as a police state. I was NOT surprised
by the verdict in LA. I expected it all along. Sadly, nothing will be
done about it, and those nice folks on the jury will go home and live
their lives, not caring that they have just put several criminals back
on the street. And when the police mistakeningly break down the front
door to their home and shoot and kill their daughter, during a drug
raid, they'll be very outraged, and they'll demand that justice be
done. And they'll sue everyone in sight when the police are acquitted
of any wrongdoing. And hopefully, they'll get what they really
deserve. I try to believe that wrongdoings will be righted in some
manner, somewhere along the way. So here's to hoping that each one of
those jury members suffer some consequences, at the hands of the LAPD,
that will make them rue the day they ever acquitted those bastards.
Mark
michael hamilton
>Another all white jury from a rich neighborhood acquitting white "nice"
>policemen for beating a black *non person*!! Ha! What a joke!. I'm
>disgusted.
It's still bad here. There are fires across the street from USC,
where the computers seem to be down (at least the ones I tried).
Offices downtown are being evacuated. There are fires all the way
up in Pasadena.
I think it incredibly ironic that the same day that the lily-white
jury acquitted the four members of LA's largest gang, the community of
Thousand Oaks (close to Simi) was named as the safest community in the
nation. The unstated correlative statistic is that the highest density
of police residence is in Simi Valley. A city full of cops and law-and-
order freaks that believe that the police never do anything wrong, since
they're not the type of people that ever run afoul of the law. Of
COURSE they acquitted them. It was their job.
We need a law... one that will not allow a change of venue, except
to a demographically similar area. Had the trial been moved to Oakland,
this could have been averted. A more competent prosecutor would have
known that changing the trial to a place like Simi would result in
something like this.
Also, they could have planned for it a little better by putting
the National Guard on alert the minute the jurors went in to deliberate.
We're still hearing that 'Mayor Bradley is ready to send in the Guard'.
What are you waiting for, Tom? We should have had tanks in the street
last night. Because everyone on the streets are armed with automatic
weapons, the cops can't travel in pairs anymore. They have to go
everywhere 10 at a time because of sniper fire. Maybe some of you
gun freaks would like to go out and talk to the homeys about their
2nd amendment rights now.
One entertainment note - some woman in Brentwood managed to get
some media time last night, as she formed a pro-Gates support group
called CIVIC (acronym unknown). She was a perfect example of the
ageing sorority-girl-married-fraternity-boy that's not really smart
enough to go take anti-codependence classes at West LA College, now
that she finds she has no real life. Also a perfect example of the
mentality of the police-can-do-no-wrong mindset that's never been
east of the San Diego freeway. I enjoy making fun of stupid white
people with money, but this was so good I taped it.
----
michael hamilton
m...@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov / oceanography from space
Robert Barton
>
>Actually the tape was tampered with and the police never used excessive
>force to arrest him! Actors were dubbed in to create that myth.
>Seriously though to add more to the tragedy is that at least 5 people
>were killed in the ensuing riots.
Ironically, a number of the criminal rioters were videotaped
committing assault, theft, vandalism, arson, and other crimes,
including one group in front of police headquarters.
Videotape evidence evidently doesn't carry much weight in LA, though.
Gary Hypes
nature of the charges, I can't believe the prosecution would have
allowed an all-white jury. Anyone out there know the facts on this?
(2) Having sat as a juror in an extended civil case, I can tell you that
the legal system routinely evicts all elements of "reasonability" and
"common-sense" and resorts to contorted mappings of snapshot-truths to
curious legalities - as if you were being asked to judge the literary
merits of a book by reading only a fraction of a sentence from one page
in every second chapter, and then holding the result against an obscure
standard that made no sense. I suspect that this, not racism, was the
cause of the outcome.
(3) I don't envy the jurors. They apparently tried very hard to decide a
politically and socially explosive case, and returned the one verdict
they must have known would be wildly unpopular. I don't think they can be
accused of having taken an easy way out, or of having come up with a racially
acceptable verdict.
- Gary Hypes -
mec...@jane.uh.edu
LUKENS
>
>
> AP Online
>
> AP 04/29 18:17 EDT V0912
> 1992. The Associated Press.
> SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- Four white Los Angeles police officers
> were acquitted Wednesday of the most serious assault charge in the
> videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, a case that shocked
> the nation and toppled the city's police chief.
> The verdicts about other charges were still being read.
>
>
> Another all white jury from a rich neighborhood acquitting white "nice"
> policemen for beating a black *non person*!! Ha! What a joke!. I'm
> disgusted.
Guilty or not, the verdict is no excuse for the anarchy in Los Angeles at
this time. Those people do not care thing one about King. They would have
began the violence regardless of the verdict. My local cable company carries
two Los Angeles TV stations, so I've had 24 hr coverage, unlike most people
out of CA who've had to rely on the Nutworks. If you are in LA, keep low
and stay safe. God bless, and God help all of you. Good luck....
Tim W Smith
Sure it does. If they hadn't had the tape (and if they had still brought
the officers to trial), there probably would have been convictions.
The defense was able to use the tape to show King attacking the officers,
and then justify nearly every blow as a response to something King
did. Without the tape, they just would have had witnesses saying "they
beat the hell out of that guy."
--Tim Smith
Jack Schmidling
>
>
ARF says:
Another Black motorist gets off free after driving
100 mph and resisting arrest.
Anyonw hear about a date set for his trial?
arf
Elizabeth G. Levy
>Guilty or not, the verdict is no excuse for the anarchy in Los Angeles at
>this time.
This is true.
> They would have
>began the violence regardless of the verdict.
Not necessarily so. Arguably, the black community is a powderkeg of
pent up rage. This verdict was the spark that set it off. I don't
know what would have happened otherwise. Perhaps the situation
would have been defused, at least until the next spark comes along.
Elizabeth G. Levy
Yeah, right. I doubt the case would have come to trial without
the tape. This case, this beating, was exceptional only in that
someone happened to have a camera nearby.
ANNE MANNING
first to ken - you've seen this already. i accidently mailed it to you.
it appears for a traffic violation in los angeles the force used on rodney
king is not excessive. NOT!!!!!!!!
this morning i listened to a juror say that rodney king was responsible
for the force used on him; and that his injuries as a result of his beating
were not serious.
let's see. i am pulled over for a traffic violation. i am beaten. my
injuries include facial fractures, leg fractures, and skull fractures.
apparently the juror is am imbecile. this juror is an idiot. this juror
is a racist, and worse yet, is completely ignorant. how did this juror
even get on the trial!!!!!
i am completely and utterly ashamed, sickened, disgusted, and outraged by
this verdict. i heard this woman juror essentially say that the world did
not see what really happened on the video. i liken this to neo-nazis trying
to tell me the holocaust did not happen. "HELLO!!! HELLO!!!! ANYONE HOME??!"
if rodney king was white, and the police officers were black, can anyone
tell me what would have happened? we all know what would have happened.
these jurors wish to remain anonymous. they have their voices disguised.
they should be ashamed of themselves. they should also be held responsible
for the aftermath of their decision, just as rodney king (as they say) should
be held responsible for his beating.
the verdict is telling us that good ol' white boys in blue uniforms can
do whatever they want to anyone and nothing will happen. what a scary
thought.
what we have seen is that in the united states human rights violations can
and will occur. we don't have to go too far from our shores to see it. and
we have also seen that it is condoned.
i am disgusted.
LUKENS
The death toll has passed 20. It is still climbing. With the curfew in
effect, and the honest citizens of LA (95%++) in their homes (or shelters)
the LAPD and Nat Guard have been making arrests of looters and arsonists.
New reports of looting and riots in San Francisco and Atlanta are coming in.
New fires are continuing to pop up. Overall, it looks calm, because the
majority of people are off the streets, but the less than 5% who are
causing troubles are still on the streets. It is far from over.
The fires have taken Frederick's of Hollywood, among others. USC and UCLA
are closed, as are most other schools in Los Angeles. 10 major post offices
are closed. violence has been reported in San Bernadino, 60 miles east of LA.
Even when the violence is over, Los Angeles will never be the same. Looters
shot and killed one private security guard. The body was left in the parking
lot where he fell. No police or ambulance came for several hours.
Rodney King is reported to have stated (through his attorney) that he is
sickened by the events in Los Angeles over the last 2 days. The citizens are
fighting back, forming bucket brigades where fire fighters are unavailible.
Los Angeles is a mess, and far more than 5 people have died...
Spencer Hines
>I am sickened, disgusted and, as a US citizen, ashamed of my country as
>a result of this verdict....
>
>Where do we go from here? Obviously this type of behavior
>cannot be condoned by us. Boycott LA? Put a new
>administration in local, state, and federal governments?
>Something has to change.
>
A friend of mine says that during the civil rights movement heyday,
when various groups were trying to intregate rail stations, cafeterias,
and so on in the south, it was generally felt that the local justice
systems were not giving justice to the activists, who were beaten, arrested
and held without due process. Numerous suits by the NAACP were generally
thrown out of local courts.
Anyway, the federal government justice department eventually started following
up on these, charging local officials with various federal crimes such as
violations of civil rights, usually for beatings.
If this is possible, I think the Justice Department ought to step in to
the L.A. problem.
The sad thing is, surely the Rodney King affair is only the tip of the iceberg.
The only reason there was credibility to the charges of brutality was due
to the one-in-a-million chance of there being a videotape of the incident.
Please don't take this as approval of the rioting. That hurts everybody,
probably minorities the most. I think its partly a result of the feeling
that there are no legal channels open for obtaining justice.
Paul S Secinaro
>last night. Because everyone on the streets are armed with automatic
>weapons, the cops can't travel in pairs anymore. They have to go
>everywhere 10 at a time because of sniper fire. Maybe some of you
>gun freaks would like to go out and talk to the homeys about their
>2nd amendment rights now.
I'd say it's a pretty good thing that a lot of honest people had the
tools necessary to defend their lives and property against crazed
looters and rioters, especially since the police had their hands full
already and couldn't defend them.
Paul
--
Paul Secinaro | Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Lab
ps...@kepler.unh.edu | Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire
Barrey Jewall
(Paul S Secinaro) writes:
>In article <1992Apr30....@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> m...@pacific.uucp
(michael hamilton) writes:
>>last night. Because everyone on the streets are armed with automatic
>>weapons, the cops can't travel in pairs anymore. They have to go
>>everywhere 10 at a time because of sniper fire. Maybe some of you
>>gun freaks would like to go out and talk to the homeys about their
>>2nd amendment rights now.
>I'd say it's a pretty good thing that a lot of honest people had the
>tools necessary to defend their lives and property against crazed
>looters and rioters, especially since the police had their hands full
>already and couldn't defend them.
>Paul
Hear, Hear!! - Also note that most of the weapons carried by the these
looting scum are and have been illegal to own in Calif. (as are many
of the weapons used to fight them off.) The bad guys are gonna have
weapons anyway, so I'd prefer if I was able to at least keep up with
them, firepower-wise...
Bah
--
---
+ Barrey Jewall - Network Admin.++ "You can't expect to wield supreme +
+ bar...@novell.com ++ executive power just because some watery +
+ Novell, Inc.- San Jose, Calif. ++ tart threw a sword at you!" - Dennis +
vanc...@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
It's BA-A-A-A-ACK!!!
:-O
-Garrett
Doug Fierro
We were just talking about this last night. Do you realize how many
lives that amateur cameraman changed? I'm not knocking what he did, in
fact I think it was good to see how the LAPD really operates. I'm sure
at the time the guy didn't realize that he would be changing history when
he filmed the beating. It amazes me how a videotape can touch so many
people's lives- it really reminds us how media-oriented this society is.
You get really philisophical when you drink and watch TV :-)
Doug
--
Doug Fierro
|\ UTS System Software
O __________|_\______ CASE tools development
\_.______________________| * * * * * * * * */ fie...@uts.amdahl.com
__\____ |=================/ (408)746-7102
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keith Jackson
>And the jury, an all-white snob-crowd from Simi Valley. I've been through
>it myself and indeed, $700,000 homes on the average.
>'nuf for me!
This is exactly the wrong attitude! Looking at the neighborhood as one
monolithic unit of a single race, making general statements about all the
people there -- that's RACIST! Instigating more hatred is not the answer.
>On a different note, what the blacks are doing in Los Angeles will solve
>nothing, according to the "impawtant fokes".
According to anyone with common sense!
> I tend to disagree, as a
>new consciousness will arise from the morass of injustice, and perhaps,
>a brave new order will evolve and raise its head above the slums and
>ghettos of Los Angeles.
What the hell kind of consciousness can come from random acts of violence?
Does looting, buring, and murdering prove a point? It only makes others
look on the rioters as mere animals, incapable of reason and undeserving of
anything but counter-violence to stop them. Once the animals have been
caged, reasonable people can sit down and discuss the problem like
civilized human beings. Only then can justice prevail. The more violence
now, the harder the solution will be to reach, and the more hatred it will
cause.
I don't think King deserved the treatment he got, but what those policemen
did has now been erased by the greater wrongs committed by the rioters.
Any condemnation we make of them must be made on the rioters 1000 times
more. Their actions are in no way justified. At least the police could
make the (very weak) case that they were trying to subdue him. The riots
serve no purpose but destruction -- a destruction that can only breed more
hatred and injustice.
Get a clue!
--
^ >
O o \_O
>=-=< Keith Jackson == jack...@turing.cs.rpi.edu |O
U _/ \_
LUKENS
You make the comment that some gun nut should go talk to the homeys about
2nd amendment rights. show me ONE AK-47 that is LEGALLY owned by a gang
member, and I will support your gun registration in CA. Those of us who
are responsible gun owners DO NOT support the ownership of UNLAWFUL automatic
weapons. The second amendment is designed to protect the honest citizen,
just like the first and third thru tenth amendemnt! INCLUDING YOU! Not one
weapon owned by gang bangers is covered by the second amendment OR supported
by those who support that amendment. You act like we want to arm everyone!
Get real! Get a grasp of what is going on around you! Don't take everything
the media tells you at face value, do some fact finding of your own!
Mike Van Pelt
Wrong. It was not an all-white jury. There were two Hispanics and
an Asian on the jury.
>policemen for beating a black *non person*!! Ha! What a joke!. I'm
>disgusted.
It's quite interesting how everybody is so absolutely certain of
the guilt of all four of the officers, based on the five (5)
seconds of the "juciest" footage that have been played over and
over again on the evening news since the incident. Alas for
the lynch-mob, the prosecution did not have the luxury of only
presenting that five (5) seconds of footage to the jury; they
were forced to show the jury the entire eighty-one (81) seconds
of footage, which, among other things, showed Rodney King rushing
at the officers, and refusing to submit to arrest.
What were the officers options?
1) Say "Oh, dear me, well, if you don't want to be arrested,
then I just suppose there's nothing we can do about it.
Have a nice day." (The ACLU prescription.)
2) Jump on him an attempt to subdue him that way. Quite a few
police officers have been shot dead that way, when the
suspect took their gun. Bad idea.
3) Order him to lie down on the ground. If he comes at you,
stay out of gun-grabbing range and hit him with the baton to
emphasize that he'd better get down. If he keeps coming at you,
keep hitting him. (Apparantly what the officers did, with the
exception of one (1) of the officers, who was the star of that
five (5) seconds of footage out of 81 that the media played over
and over and over and over. This is the officer who was
***NOT*** acquitted.)
4) Shoot him. In retrospect, maybe that's what they wish
they'd done now.
5) Ooops, sorry, you're out of options, and the suspect, who
you knew to be on parole with a long, violent record when you
stopped him is charging you. Quick! You have to pick 1-4 above
and you have one (1) second to make up your mind! Your life
and your career depend on your split-second decision!
There are certainly problems with the LAPD. But the mostly black
inner-city store owners being burned out weren't calling for Jesse
Jackson or the ACLU, they were calling for the LAPD.
There are also problems with a news media that has so carefully
nurtured a lynch-mob atmosphere over this whole incident by carefully
selective publication of partial facts. A goodly portion of the blood
of this rioting is on their hands.
Not to mention the Ventura Free Press, which just published the
names, addresses, and places of employment of all 12 of the jurors.
--
Mike Van Pelt Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Headland Technology Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide,
m...@hsv3.lsil.com Slosh it around and impregnate your brain
sun!indetech!hsv3!mvp With dichlordiphenyltrichloroethane.
Elizabeth G. Levy
>In article <1992May01....@visual.spk.wa.us> mst...@visual.spk.wa.us (Matt Staben) writes:
>>And the jury, an all-white snob-crowd from Simi Valley. I've been through
>>it myself and indeed, $700,000 homes on the average.
>
>monolithic unit of a single race, making general statements about all the
>people there -- that's RACIST! Instigating more hatred is not the answer.
True, but to hear what that juror said on Nightline last night confirms
our worst fears. She said more or less that this would have happened
whatever the verdict, that those people were just waiting for an
excuse to loot and murder. Isn't she lumping all of South Central L.A.
together, reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator? Isn't
she calling forth all her stereotypes of blacks? This jury, arguably,
would have pardoned anything the police did short of shooting King
when he was lying down.
>> I tend to disagree, as a
>>new consciousness will arise from the morass of injustice, and perhaps,
>>a brave new order will evolve and raise its head above the slums and
>>ghettos of Los Angeles.
>
>What the hell kind of consciousness can come from random acts of violence?
>Does looting, buring, and murdering prove a point? It only makes others
>look on the rioters as mere animals, incapable of reason and undeserving of
>anything but counter-violence to stop them. Once the animals have been
>caged, reasonable people can sit down and discuss the problem like
>civilized human beings. Only then can justice prevail. The more violence
>now, the harder the solution will be to reach, and the more hatred it will
>cause.
>
>I don't think King deserved the treatment he got, but what those policemen
>did has now been erased by the greater wrongs committed by the rioters.
>Any condemnation we make of them must be made on the rioters 1000 times
>more. Their actions are in no way justified. At least the police could
>make the (very weak) case that they were trying to subdue him. The riots
>serve no purpose but destruction -- a destruction that can only breed more
>hatred and injustice.
I don't condone the riot, but I can understand some of it. When
the doors of economic progress appear shut to you, what do you
really have to lose? When the system seems to be against you, when
the latest exhibit of injustice has just been thrown in your face,
is it more or less human to rail against the system? This is the
anger of a community lashing out, and angry people don't think
clearly.
I don't believe the wrongs of the rioters erase the wrongs of the police,
though the public imagination is leaning that way. The King beating
and the riots, I believe, can't really be separated. Together they
are a sad, shameful time in our history.
Mike Van Pelt
>
>>Another all white jury from a rich neighborhood acquitting white "nice"
More racist cant. Since when does 9 whites, two Hispanics,
and an Asian constitute "all lily-white"?
--
"A people who expect to be ignorant Mike Van Pelt
and free expect what never will, Headland Technology/Video 7
and never can, be." m...@hsv3.lsil.com
-- Thomas Jefferson sun!indetech!hsv3!mvp
Bob Martin
> On a different note, what the blacks are doing in Los Angeles will
solve
> new consciousness will arise from the morass of injustice, and
perhaps,
> a brave new order will evolve and raise its head above the slums and
> ghettos of Los Angeles.
Paul F. Dietz:
I interpret it this way: these events are a near-mortal blow to the
civil-rights movement. Remember the Willy Horton ads? This will have
enormously greater impact. It pushes the fear-of-blacks hot button
like nothing else could. It also pushes the economy out of people's
minds. Fear of losing your job is one thing; fear of being pulled out
of you car and beaten to death is quite another.
The 1968 riots led to 20 years of republican dominance of the
presidency. Bush is a shoe-in for a second term.
------------------------------------------
I believe that either of these is a possible scenario. It's a
chaotic system; predictions just aren't possible.
But I also believe that the riots were abetted by the gov't,
(possibly with the media and police as accomplices, unwitting
or not) with the latter scenario in mind.
The factors that lead me to this belief are
1) the change of venue - which any savvy prosecutor would've
spotted as certain doom. Why wasn't there a fight over this?
Why didn't the media report that S. Valley was 88% white,
and loaded with retired & active cops -before- the trial?
Don't tell me no one knew!
2) The almost-like-clockwork repetition of the tape on the
media. We only needed to see it once to know what had happened,
but we've all seen it over and over again. Maybe we learned
something the second time, but the 99th? I call this priming
the pump.
3) When the violence started in LA, there were no preparations
for it. I never expected a guilty verdict from Simi Valley; I
had, in fact, offered a friend even money on a hung jury (and
would've won on one count). So the powers-that-be in L.A. knew
what was going to happen -- and -let- it happen.
4) In New York, there had been no violent incidents on May 1,
but rumors spread rapidly that a riot was happening, that no
white person was safe...offices and shops closed, Manhattan
was deserted by the middle-class, amid an atmosphere that
seemed (to me) to -invite- trouble. -Still- close to nothing
happenned, until the cops interfered with the demonstrator's
decision to enter Tompkins Square Park (the site of many a
headbashing by cops against squatter/anarchists). Who started
the rumors? And who made the decision to close NYC -- both
seemingly calculated to create the situation that was most
feared?
--
Bob Martin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Bob.M...@f816.n107.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Tim W Smith
Pradeep Deshpande
|> in every second chapter, and then holding the result against an obscure
|> standard that made no sense. I suspect that this, not racism, was the
|> cause of the outcome.
|>
|> (3) I don't envy the jurors. They apparently tried very hard to decide a
|> politically and socially explosive case, and returned the one verdict
|> they must have known would be wildly unpopular. I don't think they can be
|> accused of having taken an easy way out, or of having come up with a racially
|> acceptable verdict.
Naah. It was a jury from Ventura county. A black ass being whipped by
couple of whites. Matter was simple. They came up with the only verdict that
could be the racially acceptable in Ventura connty and Simi Valley.
And this is by the way is no hype.
|> - Gary Hypes -
-Pradeep
Pradeep Deshpande
> our worst fears. She said more or less that this would have happened
> whatever the verdict, that those people were just waiting for an
Oh well, this one had the attention span of a jelly fish. She was
arguing about something and after being interrupted by the black council
person, she had no clue of what she was arguing about. With such airheads
on the juries, it's very natural that a simplistic thing as one's race
could settle the issue.
-Pradeep.
Russell Spence
>The 1968 riots led to 20 years of republican dominance of the
>Paul F. Dietz
How do you figure that? Don't you remember a guy by the name of
James Earl Carter? No, it's the weakness of the Democrat Party and
its inability to produce good candidates which has led to the
Republican dominance of the presidency.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Spence Austin, Texas
What if we built this huge wooden badger?
Christopher James White
>I am sickened, disgusted and, as a US citizen, ashamed of my country as
>that despite all its warts ours was still a system that essentially
>administered justice with equity. The verdict has demonstrated to me
>instead that something is essentially broken in our system.
I agree that in this (and probably many other cases, the system has failed.
Prejudice and racial discrimination is still a major problem in all aspects
of our society. But is it really the system that is failing, or is it the
abusers of the system? Can you propose a better solution, one that will
serve justice in a more efficeint fashion to all citizens of this country?
I think we need to begin to look at ourselves and our own personal convictions
and reservations before we start blaming the system. This case may be
an example of how "injustice" was served, but if so, it was the prejudice of
the jurors and participants in the case that failed, not the process.
cj white
Mike Van Pelt
>3) When the violence started in LA, there were no preparations
>for it. I never expected a guilty verdict from Simi Valley; I
>had, in fact, offered a friend even money on a hung jury (and
>would've won on one count). So the powers-that-be in L.A. knew
>what was going to happen -- and -let- it happen.
Well, a few weeks ago, Gates said that maybe they'd better be prepared
for riots just in case the cops weren't convicted. He was universally
condemned for making such a racist and bigoted statement, and so no
such preparations were made. Nobody else dared suggest it, lest they
also be pilloried as a racist and bigot.
How many people died for Political Correctness *this* time?
Joe Buck
>Well, a few weeks ago, Gates said that maybe they'd better be prepared
>for riots just in case the cops weren't convicted. He was universally
>condemned for making such a racist and bigoted statement, and so no
>such preparations were made.
"Universally condemned"? Naturally you'll be able to produce statements
from large numbers of people condemning Gates, right? (At most, you could
come up with a couple of quotes. So what?).
>How many people died for Political Correctness *this* time?
This is typical of people who throw the term "PC" around -- they confuse
people that are merely in a position to complain about something with
people who have power. It was fully within Gates' power to prepare for a
riot, even if some people might have thought a riot wasn't likely, or even
if some people thought that to suggest that a riot was likely was somehow
racist. If Gates did not prepare adequately, he can't pass the buck to
someone else. In LA's "weak mayor" system, the mayor can do very little
about what the chief of police does; he can't fire him, can't even really
force him to obey an order. Conservatives cry out "responsibility,
responsibility" but they pass the buck just like everyone else in our
culture.
Zero people died for Political Correctness this time. No one that called
Gates a racist was in a position to prevent the LAPD from preparing for a
riot.
--
Joe Buck jb...@ohm.berkeley.edu
Mason Jones
: the guilt of all four of the officers, based on the five (5)
: seconds of the "juciest" footage that have been played over and
: over again on the evening news since the incident.
: What were the officers options?
:
: 3) Order him to lie down on the ground. If he comes at you,
: stay out of gun-grabbing range and hit him with the baton to
: emphasize that he'd better get down. If he keeps coming at you,
: keep hitting him. (Apparantly what the officers did, with the
: exception of one (1) of the officers, who was the star of that
: five (5) seconds of footage out of 81 that the media played over
: and over and over and over. This is the officer who was
: ***NOT*** acquitted.)
It wasn't quite that nice, however. It is obvious from the video
that the officers could have ordered him to lie down and stepped
back, giving him a chance -- they really didn't do so. They didn't
stop hitting for long enough to really allow him to lie down, did
they? He kept moving, sure -- if I were being beaten like that I
probably would be too, out of pure instinct. There were many, many
chances for the cops to step back and wait to see what he did.
They would then be in no danger whatsoever. They did not do that,
they kept hitting him to make him stay down. It is pretty obvious
what was on their minds, and their own safety and concern for the
suspect was not it.
: There are certainly problems with the LAPD. But the mostly black
: inner-city store owners being burned out weren't calling for Jesse
: Jackson or the ACLU, they were calling for the LAPD.
Actually, from what I've seen reported (which is not completely
trustworthy, of course, being the media) there was a surprisingly
small number of black-owned businesses burned in comparison to
others.
: There are also problems with a news media that has so carefully
: nurtured a lynch-mob atmosphere over this whole incident by carefully
: selective publication of partial facts. A goodly portion of the blood
: of this rioting is on their hands.
:
: Not to mention the Ventura Free Press, which just published the
: names, addresses, and places of employment of all 12 of the jurors.
Agreed, absolutely. I do believe they screwed up, but enough is
enough.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Mason Jones Charnel House Productions
P.O. Box 170277, San Francisco 94117-0277 U.S.A.
...{uunet,sun}!hoptoad!dante!mason or dante!ma...@hop.toad.com
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Andy Nguyen
>Another all white jury from a rich neighborhood acquitting white "nice"
m...@hsv3.uucp (Mike Van Pelt) wrote:
>Wrong. It was not an all-white jury. There were two Hispanics and
>an Asian on the jury.
Wrong. There was _one_ Hispanic and _one_ Filipino. Pretty damn good for
a neighborhood that's more than 99% white!
--
Andy Nguyen/Team Paranoid (512) 794-9070 a...@tivoli.com ...!uunet!tivoli!aqn